Timeline
key dates and some of the major battles: 4 Sep 1985: Invasion Day; the assault begins across the Bering Straits and across the Rio Grande. Nuclear attacks on D.C., Manhattan, Kansas City, Omaha (Offutt AFB), and ICBM bases at Minot, Grand Forks, and Ellsworth AFBs in the Dakotas. Airdrops to seize key passes in the Rocky Mountains and limited drops elsewhere; the latter fail (i.e. Phoenix). 24 October: ComBloc offensive stalls from just north of Cheyenne, WY, across to Kansas and parts of Missouri. Soviet offensive literally runs out of gas short of the U.S. Canadian Border in both Montana and North Dakota. Soviets never get across the border. "General Winter" begins to set in by November, with both sides settling in, and gearing up for the Spring. February: Wolverines guerilla group wiped out in Colorado. Two survivors escape over the Rockies to safety. 6 May 1986: Operation ADVENT CROWN, the first U.S. offensive, is launched. Attack stalls and is largely over by 17 May. U.S. forces are not fully ready, and the attack is largely seen as a political necessity. Attack leads to Combloc Spring-Summer offensive on 24 May. June: ''Battle of Vancouver begins. Lasts until 3 Feb 1987. ''Battle of Casper on 16 June 1986. Combloc comes closest to cutting Interstate 90, but does not. Battle of St. Louis begins 23 June, with ComBloc failing to both take the city and secure a bridgehead east of the Mississipi. Offensive stalls, and limited counterattack drives ComBloc forces back to their start lines, and further in Colorado. Siege of Denver is partially lifted on 9 July, but the city is still under artillery and air attack, but I-70 and U.S. 36 (from Boulder) are reopened. I-25 is too dangerous, though technically open. Most supply and evacuation still by air. 18 July: Battle of Puget Sound (aka the Seattle amphib). Soviet amphibious force attempting to outflank Vancouver's defenders is destroyed. 7 August: Soviet Spetsnatz attack on U.S. National Command Bunker at Raven Rock, MD. Attack fails and leads to SAC strikes near Moscow with nuclear weapons. Soviets decide not to continue Spetsnatz campaign against U.S. leadership. 18 September: U.S. and Allied forces begin planning for 1987. Increasingly effective naval interdiction against convoys to Alaska, Cuba, Mexico, and occupied Gulf Coast ports reduces ComBloc supplies. October: At least two peace feelers are sent out by the Soviets. One is via their UN ambassador in Geneva, and the other is via the KGB station in Stockholm. Both call for peace on Soviet terms. Rumors of a third feeler via the GRU in Instanbul are not confirmed, but it reportedly offered a cease-fire in place and Soviet withdrawal, if the U.S. refused to push for reparations. The two official offers are summarily rejected. No unclassified information is available on the third. 2nd November - First Battle of Vancouver ends as last Canadian defenders in the city surrender. Isolated ressistance continues for another month. Exhausted Soviet forces are unable to take advantage of their somewhat phyric victory and are contained by British and Canadian reinforcements. Minor operations continue over the winter while Allied Forces Northern Theatre prepares to liberate the city early in the New Year. Winter 1986-87: Both sides plan and prepare for the 1987 campaign season. The U.S. and Allies are preparing for offensive operations to liberate occupied territory in the lower 48, while U.S, British. and Canadian forces keep the 60 divisions in Alaska and Western Canada entertained. 2nd January 1987 - 2nd Battle of Vancouver begins with airborne drop on the international airport. Attackers suffer 60% casualties, but are eventually relieved by ground forces. 3 Feburary 1987: 2nd Battle of Vancouver ends. 95,000 Soviet troops surrender to Canadian and British forces. Two divisions that tried to break out are wiped out almost to a man. 8-14 May, 1987: Soviets begin major offensive near Wichita, KS. U.S. Fifth Army is waiting and defeats the Soviets in the largest tank battle since Kursk. Failure directly leads to Operation PRAIRIE FIRE on 22 May 1987. 15 May-August 1987: Operation PRAIRIE FIRE (U.S. Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Armies) breaks through ComBloc defenses in Colorado (Fourth Army), New Mexico (Sixth) and Kansas-Missouri (Fifth). Some ComBloc forces collapse, especially in Colorado after their lines of supply and retreat are cut (Pueblo Pocket, 200,000 prisoners), others make a fighting withdrawal into Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. By the end of August, U.S. and allied forces have cleared Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, most of New Mexico, and the Texas Panhandle. A further advance after a hurricane slams into Texas puts U.S. forces into the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where attritional warfare lasts until early May 1988. Fall 1987-Spring 1988: Both sides prepare for the next round. U.S. planners are optimistic that the liberation of Texas and the Gulf Coast can be accomplished in 1988, but Soviet planners feel that they can prevent that. Soviet leadership by this time is increasingly desperate to win, and demands an offensive in Texas "To regain the initiative and prepare for final victory." Shortages of nearly everything in the Soviet economy are leading to trouble in the Warsaw Pact and in many regions of the USSR. April 8, 1988: ''Soviets launch Midland-Odessa Offensive against U.S. Sixth Army. Offensive stalls and is pushed back, at heavy cost to Soviets in tanks and aircraft, both now being close to irreplaceable. U.S. counteraction is the combined LONG RIFLE/GULF HAMMER offensive in early May. ''May-August 1988: ''LONG RIFLE/GULF HAMMER begin. U.S. Marines and airborne forces storm the Texas Gulf Coast, south of Houston. U.S. air and naval superiority are complete. The 2nd Battle of Houston takes a month. LONG RIFLE, the offensive by the U.S. Third, Fifth, and Sixth Armies, begins later in May, as ComBloc reserves are committed to combat GULF HAMMER. By August, U.S. forces are largely on the Interstate 10 line, but heavy fighting for San Antonio lasts until September. U.S. forces have also cleared El Paso, and have shelled and bombed Juraez into rubble. ''Fall 1988-Spring 1989: Though foiled in the main objective of liberating all of Texas and Louisiana, U.S. and Allied forces are preparing for the final campaign in the lower 48. Internationally, former NATO members such as Nethetlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugual, and Turkey drop all pretenses of neutrality, and openly begin shipping NATO-standard munitions and supplies to the U.S. and Britain. After revelations that the Green-dominated West German government is largely on the Soviet payroll, the Bundeswehr steps in and tells the Greens that they had better head to Moscow, or the next thing they will see is tanks on the streets. The Green government falls, and West Germany begins shipping arms to the U.S. in Spring, 1989, along with the French. Dormant NATO institions are reformed in late February and early April. Planning begins for offensive against DDR and other Warsaw Pact nations. 24 May 1989: Operation BORDER FURY, the U.S. final offensive in Texas, is launched. By 1 June, the border is reached by the ROK Capital Division at Presidio, TX, and by 2 July, III Corps reaches the Eagle Pass/Del Rio area and Laredo. Laredo falls after savage fighting on 10 July. V Corps reaches the Zapata Dam (taking it intact) and Rio Grande City on 7 July. By 2 August, VII Corps takes Harlingen and the Siege of Brownsville begins. Port Isabel, north of Brownsville, is taken by Marines on 14 September, and Combloc commanders begin to talk amongst themselves about surrender. KGB and DGI (Cuban Intelligence) assets are liquidated, and on 2 October, the Soviet command in Brownsville asks for terms. Unconditional Surrender is the demand, and the last ComBloc forces in the Continental U.S. surrender on 5 October. NATO forces in Europe are massing along the IGB and border with Czechoslovakia. October, 1989: U.S forces begin redeploying to the Northern Theater, which has been static for two years. The Soviet Theater Commander decides that enough is enough, and also asks for terms. After neutralizing the KGB, the surrender of all Soviet forces in Alaska and Canada is signed on 24 October. That same day, a turnover in Kremlin leadership (read: coup d'etat) leads to the USSR asking for an Armistice. The situation in the USSR by this time in many areas is on the brink of civil war, and in some areas such as the Caucausus and Soviet Central Asia, civil war has begun. The Warsaw Pact countries are swept by riots, and Communist governments fall in East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania (the only Pact country not to send troops to the U.S.) and Bulgaria. West Germany is "invited" to intervene in East Germany by the new government to expel Soviet forces, and the campaign is brief, but bloody, with the Group of Soviet Forces Germany being destroyed. British and Polish forces advance across Poland to evict Soviet forces from Warsaw - a Polish tank division just beats the Guards Armoured Division to the city. NATO forces prepre for the potentially arduous task of invading the USSR itself. Initial plans are to advance into the Baltic states which are already in a state of rebellion. Historians will debate whether preperations were part of a real intention to invade the USSR, or part of the process of forcing the Soviets to sign an armistice. In any case NATO preperations are soon made academic. The Armistice is signed on 30 October. November, 1989: North Korea, which had taken Guam in 1986, refuses to acknowledge the Armistice applies to it. Operation FORAGER II, a combined U.S., Australian, New Zealand, and Taiwanese invasion of Guam, takes place on 20 November. The island is declared Secured on 17 December. The other islands in the Marianas had been ignored by the North Koreans. North Korea then accepts that the Armistice applies to it. The NK garrison in Guam is wiped out, almost to a man. November, 1989-March 1990: Cuba, which also refuses to acknowledge the Armistice, is subject to a heavy air campaign and a U.S. naval blockade. Fidel Castro finally agrees to the Armistice terms on 3 March 1990, and the last American POWs are released beginning on 5 March 1990. No formal peace treaty is ever signed with the Combloc. The U.S. and its allies remain technically at war with the rump Soviet State and North Korea. A coup in Nicaragua in 1993 overthrows the Sandinista government, and similar coups in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatamala dispose of pro-Castro governments in those countries. After a popular uprising begins against the Castro Regime, U.S. forces invade Cuba in 2009, putting an end to the longest running Communist state in the Western Hemisphere. A dispute with Mexico over the U.S. annexation of Baja California (at Baja's request) leads to a U.S. invasion of Northern Mexico and its Gulf Coast in January, 2010. The Mexican government falls, and a new government announces its full cooperation with the U.S. "on outstanding postwar issues." Separate agreements are reached with the Far East Republic and the Russian Republic, most former Soviet republics, and former Warsaw Pact members.